http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
PRESIDENT BUSH posed for pictures this week with a group of politically
active teenagers. They were winners of a nationwide letter-writing
contest called "RespecTeen Speak for Yourself." The youths received free
trips to Washington, D.C., and a chance to meet with members of Congress
to push their pet causes.

If President Bush had actually read some of the letters from the teen
lobbyists-in-training, he would not have had much reason to smile. The
award-winning essays supported gun control, opposed educational vouchers
for poor children, and decried drilling in the Arctic refuge. One of the
most disturbing letters came from an eighth-grader in Washington state
who pleaded with his congresswoman to make abortion "a guaranteed
right."

Fourteen-year-old James Humphrey's letter to Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-WA)
was chosen for its "quality and clarity of thought, argument, supporting
data, expression, sincerity and originality." He may have been sincere,
but his arguments are far from original. I requested a copy of
Humphrey's letter from Lutheran Brotherhood, the contest's sponsor.
Here's what he wrote:

"Abortion needs to be a guaranteed right. New research being conducted
in the field of genetics will soon make it possible for a parent to know
whether their (sic) child will be born with a serious disease or
disability. In the past, this was possible for only a few diseases, but
groundbreaking discoveries in the last six months are opening doorways
for 'early warning' for devastating diseases."

Humphrey goes on to describe the plight of a friend whose young sister
died of Rhett's Syndrome. "She couldn't walk, or talk. She had constant
seizures, frequent pneumonia, and hardly slept at night.Her family loved
her, but life was exhausting and heartbreaking." Humphrey's friend, he
says, "should have the right to decide whether she wants to give birth
to a daughter with the disease. I also expect to have the right to make
this choice with my future wife. I have an autistic brother.No one
should tell me I have to have a child with this disorder."

The letter concludes: "I call for action on your part to help
permanently legalize abortion so tragedies like these can be averted and
more people do not need to live like this."

The pro-abortion movement and the self-centered language of "choice"
have so dominated the public conscience that it seems mean-spirited to
question the boy's dangerously misguided compassion. We have become
obsessed with quality of life at the expense of the sanctity of life.
But championing abortion as a government-sponsored method to "avert
tragedies" - that is, to kill undesirable babies -- is not the sign of a
merciful society. It is the sign of a cruelly utilitarian one that views
"less-than-perfect" human beings as burdensome and disposable.

It's a short trip from "averting" the lives of babies with birth
defects, to forcing the sterilization of poor people for the "public
good" (as was done in this country from the early 1900s until as
recently as 1979), to attempting the creation of a perfect species
through mass murder disguised as a medically necessary cleansing. The
words of Dr. Leo Alexander, who worked with the Chief American Counsel
at the Nuremberg Tribunal, remain a powerful warning about the origins
of the Holocaust:

"It started with the acceptance of the attitude, basic in the euthanasia
movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived.
This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the
severely and chronically sick. Gradually, the sphere of those to be
included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially
unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted, and
finally all non-Germans. But it is important to realize that the
infinitely small, wedged-in lever from which the entire trend of mind
received its impetus was the attitude towards the non-rehabilitable
sick."

Young James Humphrey's reasoning, innocent though it may be, is rooted
in the eugenics philosophy of Nazi Germany. The boy may not have known
any better, but the adults who rewarded his essay have no excuse for
their monstrous ignorance of
history.